


The Great Deportation In The Warsaw Ghetto - Abraham Lewin’s Diary

by sasha70



Category: No Fandom
Genre: F/M, Genocide, Holocaust, Jewish Identity, Jews - Freeform, Mass Murder, Non-Graphic Violence, The Holocaust, Warsaw, Warsaw Ghetto, poland - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:35:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23083303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha70/pseuds/sasha70
Summary: Abraham Lewin maintained a diary depicting the wartime events in the Warsaw Ghetto.It is rare in covering real time the Great Deportation in the summer of 1942, during which some 265,000 Jews were deported to their deaths in Treblinka, and some 10,000 were murdered within the ghetto. Almost no visual documentation of this period exists.
Relationships: Abraham Lewin/Luba
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	The Great Deportation In The Warsaw Ghetto - Abraham Lewin’s Diary

**Author's Note:**

> From July until November.
> 
> Credits: Yad Vashem on Youtube.

July 22nd 1942

The news about the expulson of Jews is spreading like lightning through the town. 

Jews run by, in confusion, terrified.

The Jewish streets are in appalling sight - the gloom is indescribable.

July 23rd, 1942

On Zamenhof Street the Germans pulled people out of a tram, and killed them on the spot. 

The round-up was halted at three o’ clock. The savagery of the police during the round-up, the murderous brutality.

They drag girls from rickshaws, empty out flats, and leave property strewn everywhere. 

How do Jews hide?

In couches, in beds, cellars, attics.

July 26th 1942

6 Solna Street: 99 victims. 

Today 12,000 martyrs.

The violence of the police. The break-up of families. It hurts so much. Only the workers in the workshops seem to still be safe.

July 29th 1942

A meeting of Oyneg Shabbes. Its tragic character. They discuss the question of ownership and the transfer of the archive to America to the YIVO [Yiddish Scientific Institue] if we all die. 

August 9th 1942

It is a wonder that people can endure so much suffering, living the whole day on a knife-edge between life and death and clinging with all their might to life in the hope that they may be among the ten survivors.

August 11th 1942

Early this morning the Germans and the riotars spread through the ghetto. In the course of five minutes they drove out all the occupants on Gesia Street between Zamenhof and Lubiecka Streets. 

They pay no attention to papers. 

August 12th 1942

Eclipse of the sun, universal blackness. 

My Luba was taken away....

I have no words to describe my desolation. I ought to go after her, to die. But I have no strength to take such a step... 

August 13th 1942

I will never be consoled as long as I live. 

To fall into the hands of such butchers!... How tragic it is! A life together of over 21 years... has met such a tragic end. 

August 14th 1942

The sight of the streets: the pavements are fenced off, you walk in the middle of the road. 

Certain streets are completely closed off with fences and gates and you can’t get in there. The impression is of cages.

The whole Jewish Warsaw has been thrown out of the buildings. There is a full-scale relocation of all Jews who have not yet been rounded up and are still in the town.

August 15th 1942

The pain because of the loss of Luba is becoming more intense. 

My soul can find no peace, for not having gone after her when she was in danger, even though I could have also disappeared and Ora would have been left an orphan.

August 21st 1942

There is talk of a second front in France and Holland. 

If these things had happened four or five weeks ago, perhaps we would have been saved from the catastrophe.

August 24th 1942

Six in the evening.

Jewish policemen have returned from the town and said that action is continuing. 

So, all our hopes that the bloody action had ceased have now been swept away. 

How will we survive?

How will we be able to bear it?

People talk of the special danger that now threatens children. 

A terrible dread seizes me, when I think of the fate of Ora. She has no documents and is in danger. 

Since Friday no news reaches us from the other side of the wall. 

September 11th 1942

The terrible appearance of the streets transformed into a Umschlagplatz [concentration point].

The crowds of Jews with packs on their backs, streaming through the streets of the ghetto. 

Everyone is camped out on the streets. 

The Swieca family has perished. He gave himself up after seeing how his wife and two children were taken. Initially he went with us to Gesia Street, later he went back, gave himself up and was sent away.

I feel a great compassion and admiration for this straightforward person. 

We tremble with every noise and shot that comes from the street. Today is the 52nd day in the greatest and most terrible slaughter in history. We are the tiny remnants of the greatest Jewish community in the world. 

September 21st 1942

A Jew has returned to our workshop who worked as a gravedigger in Treblinka. 

According to what he said, not only Jews from Warsaw and of the gubernia [area] are being exterminated in Treblinka, but Jews from all over Europe from France, Belgium, Holland, among others. 

Those who are faraway cannot imagine our bitter situation, they will not understand and will not believe that day after day thousands of men, women and children, innocent of any crime, were taken to their death. 

Almighty god! Why did this happen and why is the world deaf to our screams. 

November 11th 1942

How terrible it is that a whole generation - millions of Jews - has suddenly become a community of ‘martyrs’, who have had to die in such a cruel, degrading and painful manner and go through the torments of hell before going to the gallows. 

Earth, earth do not cover our blood and do not keep silent, so that our blood will cry out until the end of time, and demand revenge for this crime which has no parallel in our history and in the whole human history. 

**Author's Note:**

> Abraham Lewin (Avraham Levin) survived the Great Deportation, and continued documenting the tragic events of the ghetto. His final diary entry is dated January 15th 1943.
> 
> On January 18th, deportations from the ghetto were resumed, during which Lewin and his daughter Ora are presumed to have been captured.


End file.
